Bethany McLean

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The government’s 119-page civil lawsuit against credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s for allegedly inflating the ratings it gave to residential mortgage-related securities, or RMBS, in the run-up to the crash has removed whatever lingering doubts (there weren’t many!) might have remained about just how problematic the ratings game is. But it also raises a question: Why, in cases of white-collar wrongdoing, is it often the cogs in the wheel that seem to pay the highest price?

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According to the numbers, Apple’s battered stock is one of the best bargains of all time. Since hitting a high of almost $700 last fall, shares have plummeted 37 percent, to $442, including a 12 percent drop in late January after Apple posted flat year-over-year profits, which bitterly disappointed the Street. Apple now trades at just over 10 times last year’s profits and roughly eight times Wall Street’s estimate of next year’s earnings — well below the average of the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. Plus, Apple is set to begin paying a dividend of $10.60 a share, well above the yield on Treasuries.

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Bethany McLean is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, and co-author with Joe Nocera of "All the Devils are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis." Her first book, "The Smartest Guys in the Room," co-written with Peter Elkind, became an Academy Award-nominated documentary.